The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen Read Free Book Online Page B

experience. That's what really matters."
    By now, I'd been at the library for three days, and things were not improving. I knew that I was doing this for Jason, that it was important to him, but Bethany and Amanda seemed to be pooling their considerable IQs in a single-minded effort to completely demoralize me.
    I was trying to keep my emails to Jason upbeat and reassuring, but after day two, I couldn't help but vent a little bit about Bethany and Amanda and the way they'd been treating me. That was even before another dressing down in front of a patron, this time from Bethany, who felt compelled to point out—twice—that, to her trained ear, I'd mispronounced Albert Camus' name while directing a sullen summer school student to the French literature section.
    "Cam-oo," she'd said, holding her mouth in that pursed, French way.
    "Cam-oo," I repeated. I knew I'd said it right and wasn't sure why I was letting her correct me. But I was.
    "No, no." She lifted up her chin again, then fluttered her fingers near her mouth. "Cam-ooo."
    I just looked at her, knowing now that no matter how many times I said it, even if I trotted Albert himself up to give it a shot, it wouldn't matter. "Okay," I said. "Thanks."
    "No problem," she said, swiveling in her stupid chair, back to Amanda, who smiled at her, shaking her head, before going back to what she was doing.
    So it was no wonder that when I got home that day, I was cheered, greatly, to see that Jason had written me back.
He
knew how impossible those girls were; he would understand. A little reassurance, I thought, opening it with a double-click. Just what I needed.
    After I scanned the first two lines, though, it was clear that my self-esteem and general emotional well-being were, to Jason anyway, secondary.
After your last email
, he wrote,
I'm concerned that you're not putting your full attention into the job. Two full paragraphs about the info desk, but you didn't answer the questions I asked you: did the new set of
Scientific Monthly Anthologies
come in? Have you been able to access the tri-country database with my password
? Then, after a couple of reminders about other things it was crucial I attend to, this:
If you're having problems with Bethany and Amanda, you
    should address them directly. There's no place in a working environment for these interpersonal issues
. He didn't sound like my boyfriend as much as middle management. Clearly I was on my own.
    "Honey?"
    I looked up. Across the table, my mother was looking at me with a concerned expression, her fork poised over her plate. We always ate at the dining room table, even though it was just the two of us. It was part of the ritual, as was the rule that she fixed the entree, I did the salad or vegetable, and we lit the candles, for ambiance. Also we ate at six sharp, and afterwards she rinsed the dishes and loaded them in the dishwasher, while I wiped down the counters and packed up leftovers. When we'd been four instead of two, Caroline and my dad had represented the sloppy, easygoing faction. With them gone, my mother and I kept things neat and organized. I could spot a crumb on the countertop from a mile off, and so could she.
    "Yes?" I said.
    "Are you okay?"
    As I did every time she asked this, I wished I could answer her honestly. There was so much I wanted to tell my mother, like how much I missed my dad, how much I still thought about him. But I'd been doing so well, as far as everyone was concerned, for so long, that it seemed like it would be a failure of some sort to admit otherwise. As with so much else, I'd missed my chance.
    I'd never really allowed myself to mourn, just jumped from shocked to fine-just-fine, skipping everything in between. But now, I wished I had sobbed for my dad Caroline-style, straight from the gut. I wished that in the days after the funeral, when our house was filled with relatives and too many casseroles and everyone had spent the days grouped around the kitchen table, coming and going,